Guild Wars 2

This suggestion is coming from feedback i’ve been getting from players from wvw. As you know, rangers aren’t very well liked by wvw guilds and such. One of the complaints was that we dont have enough CC or aoe dmg.
Now, the aoe dmg part is wrong imo since piercing arrows makes for a good aoe. However, and i dont think this is OP, making so Point Blanck shot (LB) and the stun shot (SB) were also affect by this trait, would help improve ranger image as a teamplay class. Other classes can do aoe stuns, we only have pets with fear. For the sake of build diversty as well cooling of the (almost) ranger hate from wvw.

P.S.: Yes, i do realize most of the ranger complaints/flame actually come from people who: 1) only like easy classes like warriors or guardians and can’t stand classes that require foward thinking; 2) never played ranger in their lifes and are swayed by comments from the people mentioned above.
However – Truth be told – rangers have a bad reputation. Dear Anet. Make a dev guide video and show that ranger is a viable class in wvw. Clkittene/class is not admissable in an mmo.
P.P.S.: Sorry if the last part of this suggestion came of a bit as a rant.

Cheers!

Piercing arrows works with LB 4.

It works with Point Blank Shot already. Not sure about Concussive, will have to test, but I think effect applies only to first target.
Personally, I’d move Piercing Arrows trait to adept in skirmishing.
Another step should be mixing it with current bleed-on-crit trait, making it similar to Necromancer’s adept Soul Reaping trait, which allows L. Blast to pierce and inflict vunerability. This way, we clean up one Master Major slot for MM.

ANYTHING that’d allow me to take piercing + eagle eye + remorseless is good for me. I find it sooo stupid I can’t have all traits connected to my weapon at once :/

Piercing arrows trait affect every arrow skill, including LB #4 and SB #5

As others have said, piercing shots works with all of the skills for each weapon. The player base is sufficiently large and diverse enough where if the fact this class was terrible was all some kind of conspiracy people wouldn’t fall for it. No amount of videos is going to change this opinion of the class. Only real improvements from the developers will.

As mentioned many times above, the effect of the arrow applies to ALL targets it hits. A knock back arrow lined up properly can knock back as many as are in the arrows path.

Other weapons have DEFAULT PIERCING. Giving them way more build diversity. Ranger is more reliant on triats then any other profession out there. It’s a reason why traits like piercing should go away and be default.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Other weapons have DEFAULT PIERCING. Giving them way more build diversity. Ranger is more reliant on triats then any other profession out there. It’s a reason why traits like piercing should go away and be default.

This is a rather bad idea. Often there are situations where you need to lure just one mob from a pack instead of according all of them.

Maybe if piercing arrows was merged with some other trait then I could understand. But piercing on default is sosomething I really wouldn’t want.

(And as far as I know engineers rifle is the only projectile weapon that pierces by default.)

Only buff LB needs is the ability to have a crosshairs so i can manually aim it. Aim the bow down the middle of the hall with piercing arrows to aoe the mass? Perfect. This would be an amazing change for the ballista too.

The push with LB work only with the selected target and not with all the arrow hit. It is a bug? Again?

Ranger don’t have enough CC?

Entangle (deadly in a zerg colliding into another zerg clusterkitten)
Spike Trap
Frost Trap
Muddy Terrain
Daze / Stun on shortbow and GS
A variety of pets with CC (if they can stay alive long enough)

What we lack is a low cooldown blast finisher, something most people want on maul, for a long time.

Piedplat.3597:

The push with LB work only with the selected target and not with all the arrow hit. It is a bug? Again?

It works at all targets in line. I tested it yday to be sure.

Well turn out you guys are correct. I never saw it happen in pve/wvw so i went to the heart of the mists (rarely go there, and wvw have to play in lowest settings which is probly why i never really noticed it happening) and indeed it does work, so good news for me there. As far as spike and frost traps being used as CC, well…maybe it works best in 1v1 or smaller group fights as even if traited to be thrown it’s really close range. And for some reason pets seem to respond less to their F2 skills in large battles (no, im not talking about lag, im talking having to push the button multiple times for it to actually activate, not sure why. Maybe the pet tries to move closer to the target? I’ve had times when using Shrug it off with brown bear on passive mode and the pet moved near the enemy before actually using the skill).

Cheers!

As a snarky follow up, how ‘good’ of an AE is Piercing Arrows if you’ve never actually seen it in action with those abilities :P hehe.

I’m in agreement with Rym and Terkov though, we need a solution for the trait jam that is Marksmanship. Move something, merge something, make something just baseline behavior… something something something.

I am not holding my breath on that something though. :\

10:06 and 22:01 is how LB 4. works with piercing

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Other weapons have DEFAULT PIERCING. Giving them way more build diversity. Ranger is more reliant on triats then any other profession out there. It’s a reason why traits like piercing should go away and be default.

id suggest you have a look at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Piercing

That list is incomplete. Blunderbuss for instance. Rifle 3 on engie. That means the two most used skills on engineer rifle have piercing, wich to me essentially make the weapon default piercing. Netshot/the nr 4 overcharged shot won’t make a diff in the end, that they don’t pierce. And nr 5 is a aoe, so no issues there either.

this trait should be in skirmish and not in marksman

Mesket.5728:

this trait should be in skirmish and not in marksman

Why in the world would would a trait dealing with shooting stuff be in a skirmishing line :/

Rym.1469:

It works with Point Blank Shot already. Not sure about Concussive, will have to test, but I think effect applies only to first target.
Personally, I’d move Piercing Arrows trait to adept in skirmishing.
Another step should be mixing it with current bleed-on-crit trait, making it similar to Necromancer’s adept Soul Reaping trait, which allows L. Blast to pierce and inflict vunerability. This way, we clean up one Master Major slot for MM.

Man, that’s a really good suggestion! +1